When my grandfather passes away I received his complete set of model railroader magazines from 1936 to 1964. They are a great source of material as many of the earlier issues were full of scratch built projects. They are also interesting to read from a historical view. Issues through the war years urge people to buy war bonds to stop the "axis" threat. After the atomic bomb was dropped and brought in the nuclear age I think every hobby shop in the country had "atomic" in its name. I often wonder what the magazines are worth, though I will probably never sell them. However if anyone is looking for a certain article from those years I may be able to provide some information Steve
Model Railroader Magazines 1936-1964
May 28, 2008
6 Replies
As a resource, they're fantastic. From an era where scratchbuilding was routine - and as you've observed, wonderful mini time machines. =46rom a value perspective you have only to check Ebay to be disappointed. The very earliest will certainly have some small value, but as I said - check for yourself, and don't get your hopes too high. You wouldn't be sending anyone to college on the proceeds of their sale. Your own plan to keep them and use them as references for yourself and others is a smart strategy.
On 5/28/2008 6:31 PM snipped-for-privacy@sprintmail.com spake thus:
Small value, indeed. Seems every time I've gone to a club or a hobby shop that's getting rid of its boxes and boxes of old model railroad mags, they go for next to nothing, and usually end up getting tossed unsold. Pity, for the reasons you gave.
If you have the space, keep 'em.
David Nebenzahl wrote in news:483e1e90$0$4970 $ snipped-for-privacy@news.adtechcomputers.com:
Hard drive space is fairly cheap nowadays, so converting them to electronic form may not be a bad idea. A hand scanner (if they're still available) could possibly be used to scan the whole page without unbinding the magazine.
Unfortunately, copyright would prevent anyone from sharing them without Kalmbach's permission, but at least you don't lose the magazine when you go to gain back the space. (Editorial Comment: /This/ is what PDF format is for, archival of paper objects, not website content.)
Puckdropper
I'd advise against that. Buy a good flatbed scanner, they are available for around $100-150, and you will have lot more use for it that for scanning old MRs. Pick one with at least 2400dpi _optical_ resolution. If the specs on the box highlight "up to x000dpi", avoid that machine - it will probably have low optical resolution and will use software to to fake the higher resolution. This will result in muddy scans. Current flatbeds are more than adequate to scan negatives and slides.
When scanning magazines etc, set the scanning software to "descreen", so that there won't be weird artifacts in the scanned halftones (pictures).
HTH
No. You want flatbed.
I've tried emailing MR several times, to beg them to put out MR on CD in maybe 10-yr sets. As someone who's had to relocate halfway across the damn continent four times, I'd *love* to have that, Mags from Nat. Geographic to most computer mags do it; meanwhile, I've yet to get a response from them.
mark
I believe MR figures they can make more money by selling photocopies of magazines or stories than by selling sets of CDs. Too bad.
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